


Feedback

by EllaBesmirched (El_Bell)



Series: Mod About You [2]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Body Mod Kylo, Body Modification, Body Worship, Explicit Sexual Content, I think? Basically?, M/M, Marijuana, Of course they're all fucking stoners ok, Recreational Drug Use, street fighter - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-25
Updated: 2017-08-25
Packaged: 2018-12-19 14:37:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11899812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/El_Bell/pseuds/EllaBesmirched
Summary: One week ago, Hux met a very strange man at a bar, and hasn't been able to think of anything else since. Now, he'll get to see Kylo Ren again, but this time he won't be working-- he'll be playing.And if he happens to invite Hux back to his place after his show, well, Hux can really only hope.





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**Author's Note:**

> Wow, y'all. Thank you so much for all your kind words about Inked! I was so eager to show you what else I had planned for them so here is part two, containing more tattoos, more piercings, and more of Hux getting some much needed ~relaxation. 
> 
> PS: If you're a Street Fighter fan and you are not from the US, you may know Vega as Claw/Balrog. Just saying!

Hux was staring at his shoe rack when Phasma arrived. She knocked twice, then opened the door without waiting for him to answer it, and found him staring into his closet in consternation, thumb and forefinger curled around his chin and brows furrowed.

“You ready? You don’t look ready.”

“I don’t have any shoes,” he complained without looking at her.

He saw her lift her brows from the corner of his eye. “You have more shoes than I do. What do you mean you don’t have shoes.”

“They’re all… shiny,” he complained. “Or for working out.”

Phasma sighed and stepped forward to stare into the closet. Then she said, “Oh.”

“‘Oh,’” Hux parroted back, annoyed.

“Well, the mall is on the way,” she suggested.

Hux turned to look at her, and she actually started laughing. “What?” he demanded.

“You just look so concerned,” she chuckled. “It’ll take five minutes, it’s fine.”

Hux eyed her skeptically. In his experience it most certainly did not take five minutes to buy shoes. He peered down at her footwear and found she was wearing a pair of black canvas sneakers with white tips and white rubber soles. “Where do you even find shoes like that?” he demanded.

“Chucks?” she half screeched incredulously. “Literally everywhere? Did you come out of the womb fully grown or have you just forgotten the first eighteen years of your life?”

Hux scowled and shoved by her to take one last look in the floor length mirror. He only felt marginally like himself. He’d opted for well fitting jeans and a thin black V-neck T-shirt instead of his standard slacks and button up, and he’d only put the tiniest splash of product in his hair-- it naturally stuck to his typical severe part, but it kept falling in his eyes without his pomade to hold it in place. He tried to shove a shock of hair off his forehead and sighed in frustration.

 _Wear something sexy,_ Kylo had texted him. As if Hux’s idea of sexy and Kylo’s could possibly align. He’d found the T-shirt in the very bottom of his drawer, and the jeans, for all they fit him exquisitely well, were so infrequently used they still looked brand new. _Wear something sexy._

“This is stupid. This is a stupid idea and I look ridiculous.”

“You look fine, you idiot,” Phasma drawled. “Come here, let me fix your hair.”

Hux glared at her.

“Relax, I’m just gonna rough it up a little.” She stepped forward, hands out stretched, and Hux let her twist and tug his hair until she was satisfied. When she stepped away and he turned to look in the mirror, he raised his brows. It looked… good. It looked _really_ good.

“How’d you do that?”

“One of the many perks of having a lady friend who also has short hair,” she told him, pointing to her perfectly coiffed head. “Plus, you have a great hair cut. It’s totally wasted on you, you know.” When Hux started to lift his hand to the artfully tousled orange tangle, she slapped his fingers away. “Don’t touch it, you’ll fuck it up. Now let’s go get you some shoes.”  
  
  


It was another goddamn dive bar, but this one had a stage. Hux made straight for the bar, Phasma close on his heels, and pulled a face when he saw three beer taps-- Bud, Bud Light, and PBR.

He ordered a whiskey instead.

“That’s him?” Phasma demanded incredulously, yelling to be heard over the sound of the band sound checking.

Hux peered toward the stage and saw immediately how Phasma had picked Kylo out. There were three women on the stage and only two men. Rey was adjusting a microphone and idly strumming her guitar. Two asian women with high pony tails were tuning guitars of their own. The incredibly tall, incredibly hairy drummer looked to be at least twice their age and was already shirtless, pounding out random rhythms while his long hair tangled around his face.

And then there was Kylo, sitting on a monitor with his back mostly to the crowd, peering down at a tangle of wires on the ground.

Hux’s heart actually skipped a beat. “That’s him,” he agreed, wetting his lips. Kylo seemed even bigger, even more defined than Hux remembered-- but that may have been the black shirt he was wearing, the sleeves cut away so Hux could see all the tattoos on his ribs and the muscles in his biceps and shoulders.

“Him, right there, him?” Phasma demanded again. “With the tattoos and the cut up clothes and the long hair, that one right there?”

“Yes,” Hux snapped, tearing his eyes away so he could glare at Phasma.

She stared at him in skeptical incredulity and then said, “I mean. Alright?”

Hux turned back toward the stage. Kylo was picking up his instrument now, an alarmingly simple black bass guitar. He ran his long fingers over the strings and a low squeal of feedback came out of the speakers. He paused, flipped a few switches, and tried again. This time he seemed satisfied. He didn’t turn to the crowd at all, just looked at Rey and nodded. Rey, in turn, looked at every other member of the band, and when her eyes settled on the hairy, half naked drummer, he thrust two impossibly long arms into the air, pounded his sticks together, and they were off.

When the first song ended, Phasma leaned over and said, “Fuck, they’re pretty good.”

Hux didn’t really hear her.

The band was pretty good.

Kylo was incredible.

The rest of the band was rooted firmly in the garage rock genre, with Rey bouncing around the stage inexplicably and flawlessly merging hyper manic joy with something just a little sultry, the other two guitarists trading back and forth on lead with simple but well executed riffs and the occasional shouted back up vocal, and the drummer keeping impeccable timing with absolutely ridiculous fills thrown in that would have been more fitting in a heavy metal band.

But Kylo.

He changed everything, transcended the genre so Hux couldn’t quite name what he was listening to. He kept his back almost to the crowd, and if he opened his eyes, it was to stare at his long fingers on the the thick strings. He played bass like he would a guitar, with impossibly fast picking patterns that danced around jazz and blues scales with intense, almost cold precision. He actually made it look easy, but Hux knew enough about music to know how difficult it was to pick a bass guitar like that, never mind the sheer technical know how required to play with those scales and still make them fit under the joyous chaos of the rest of the group.

“Pick your jaw up off the floor, hon,” Phasma chuckled into his ear, leaning close enough so he could feel her breath on his cheek.

Hux just hadn’t really expected him to be any good. He certainly hadn’t expected to _like_ it.

After the first two songs, the room filled up. The bar smelled like sweat and spilled beer and Hux didn’t move from his seat for fear he’d lose it. He finished his drink and the bartender had to tap him and glare to get him to order more.

Kylo had his hair down and it fell in thick, shiny waves around chin, almost completely blocking his face from view. The long stretch of his arms holding up the bass, the way his head was bent watching the strings, how he lifted one booted foot and braced it against his monitor-- Hux was enthralled with his every understated movement.

The band was popular-- that became apparent about thirty minutes into the set when the floor in front of the stage was so full, people started jostling for the front row and a very enthusiastic mosh pit formed in the middle. Kylo also acquired a fan club-- a small gaggle of teenaged-and-twenty-something women who clustered near his little corner of the stage and screamed and fist pumped every time he flipped his hair out of his eyes.

Even with all that nonsense, Hux was still surprised when Rey, grinning from gauged ear to ear, screamed a farewell amidst the chaotic cacophony of the entire band ending on their favorite riff. When he looked at his watch, he saw it was almost 12:30.

The band started breaking down all their equipment; patrons started leaving, or at least filtering outside to smoke. Hux closed his tab and tried not to keep anxiously looking over his shoulder, waiting for Kylo to finish with his gear and notice Hux.

It wasn’t the gear that distracted Kylo-- it was the girls, all pressing in on top of each other, grinning and chatting. Phasma appeared at his shoulder again and Hux realized they hadn’t spoken in almost an hour when she said, “Your boy’s got a fan club.”

Hux wiggled his toes in his brand new bright red Chuck Taylors, suddenly feeling very stupid. Kylo was grinning and flirting, one leg propped up on his monitor and leaning on his own knee so he was almost bent in half staring at all those girls from the little stage. Hux couldn’t tear his eyes away from the small sea of torn fishnets and ragged boots, thick winged eyeliner and tangled pink and teal and purple hair. He scuffed one shoe across the too-white toe of the other and bit the inside of his lip with a forlorn little shrug to Phasma.

Kylo chose that moment to lift his dark eyes over the heads of the crowd, to peer across the room almost as if he knew Hux was leaning as casually as he could against the bar. His expression showed instantly that he knew no such thing because the smug little smirk he’d been wearing suddenly split into a wide, sunny grin. The expression was at complete odds with his imposing physique; Hux felt himself smirk in response, some of his anxiety trickling away as he lifted his chin with the arrogance he usually reserved for stubborn clients and idiot employees. 

Kylo shouted, “Red!” and leapt from the stage with one huge bound, the woman he’d been talking too staring after him, nonplussed and annoyed.

Phasma snorted in amusement, but Kylo was shoving his way through the lingering crowd line a linebacker and before Hux could respond, he was swept up in a pair of huge arms and kissed liked he could never remember being kissed before-- like he and Kylo had known each other for much longer than a week, like they’d been separated for four times that. When Kylo broke away (too soon) Hux found he wasn’t at all concerned about the state of his shoes or the women crowding the stage. In fact, he peered dazedly over Kylo’s shoulder and found a group of them staring at him. He couldn’t resist flashing the briefest grin before he looked away.

Kylo wrapped his arms around Hux’s waist and put his chin on Hux’s shoulder and Hux almost shoved him away because he never let anyone _hug_ him, but this close, Hux could smell him, and his mind flashed instantly to Kylo’s bar, to the little storage closet and _Jesus fucking Christ, Red!_ and instead he turned his nose toward the long, sweat damp hair curling around Kylo’s ears.

Phasma cleared her throat and Kylo lifted his head. “You brought a friend!”

Hux carefully extricated himself from the embrace, cheeks burning now that he wasn’t so overwhelmed by the very scent of him, and said, “Uh. Yes. This is my work associate, Phasma.”

“Work associate?” Kylo said in surprise as he stepped away to peer up at her.

Phasma smirked and winked. “That’s code for best friend.” Hux snorted, and Phasma added with a roll of her eyes, “If Hux _had_ best friends, that is.”

“Kylo Ren,” he told her brightly, sticking out his hand. Phasma shook it.

Now that Hux had the chance to look at him more closely, he noticed with an odd little thrill that Kylo had a new bit of silver glinting on his face-- a thin bar through the bridge of his nose that lined up perfectly with the corners of his eyes. “You’ve put a new hole in your face,” Hux said, trying to sound amused and disapproving at once but mainly just sounding fascinated. He reached out as he spoke to brush his fingers over the space and Kylo slapped his hand.

“Don’t touch it with your dirty fingers!”

“My fingers are not dirty,” Hux breathed, affronted, while Phasma giggled.

“Yes, they are,” Kylo informed him. “Unless you washed them in the last three minutes. Bridge piercings are delicate. You can’t go touching ‘em all willy nilly.”

“What do you mean ‘delicate,’” Hux demanded.

“Mm, it’s a surface piercing,” Kylo told him, voice taking on a sharp, commanding sort of tone that sent another little shiver down Hux’s spine. “So like, the lip, or the septum, or the ear or whatever, they go through meaty bits and your body heals around ‘em, you know? But with these,” he continued, pointing to his nose, “The bar sits just under your skin and if you don’t take care of it properly, it can reject. Basically your body recognizes a foreign object and pushes that object out of the body.” He grinned at the horrified expression on Hux’s face and added, “Hurts like a sonuvabitch too.”

“You’ve… had this happen before?” Hux asked weakly.

Kylo chuckled. “Yeah. Certain piercings it’ll almost always happen with. I used to have one just under both hip bones. Didn't scar too bad, but the tattoos covered up what was left. Those I bumped a lot with clothes and shit so they didn’t last long.”

“Any others?” Hux pressed.

Kylo gave him a crooked smile, and lifted the hair off his neck with one hand. He turned to face the stage and Hux saw six silver discs that he hadn’t noticed the first time he saw Kylo, when his hair had been tied up, glinting among all the tattoos.

Phasma made a disgusted noise and Kylo turned to grin at her. “Those give me the heebie jeebies,” she told him. “I didn’t know you could pierce the back of your _neck._ ”

Kylo shrugged and let his hair fall. “You can pierce anything,” he informed her. Then his eyes dropped back to Hux and he said brightly, “Did you enjoy the show?”

“I did,” Hux told him, unable to keep the surprise out of his voice. With a small, self conscious glance at Phasma, he leaned in and added in a low voice, “ _You_ were incredible. How long have you been playing?”

Kylo shrugged. “Bass? Like ten years. But I started piano and violin when I was like, I dunno, five?”

Hux felt his brows dart up, trying to picture a five year old Kylo, or Kylo playing the violin. Neither picture came but before he could shake the strangeness of that thought, Phasma asked, “How old are you?”

“Twenty eight.”

She whistled. “Twenty three years of music experience.”

Kylo shrugged again, and then very rapidly changed the subject. “We’re all going back to our place to hang out. Come with us.” He stared at Hux when he said it and Hux found himself gaping wordlessly like a fish.

Phasma interrupted them with a chuckle and said, “Hux doesn’t _hang out.”_   

Before Hux could turn to glare at her, Kylo leaned forward, one long finger tracing the space in front of Hux’s ear, and said softly, “He will for me.” Then he pouted with his pretty pierced lips and said pleadingly, “Won’t you, Red?”

Hux’s heart leapt into his throat. It was like in the bar, when Kylo had touched his lip, had told him lip rings were sexy, and Hux had been willing to do just about anything as long as Kylo kept touching him and talking to him like that. He knew he was being manipulated before he opened his mouth, knew Kylo knew exactly the kind of effect he had on people, that if he spoke softly and touched gently, he could get anyone to curl around his finger without even twisting his hand...

Hux still said, “Absolutely,” and was proud when his voice came out confident and firm rather than breathy and overwhelmed.

 

Kylo lived in the part of town most populated by the university students. It was one of the huge, oversized houses that, a hundred years ago, had belonged to the city’s ruling elite, but had since been broken into strangely arranged apartments and rented out to college kids who liked to party and dropouts who never saw the point in moving away from the city’s center. Kylo lived on the top floor of a three floor walk up, and as Hux stepped inside, he recognized the aging wood floors, the drafty windows with the glass thicker at the bottom, the tiny kitchen added as an afterthought, that were all peculiar to this style of home. In these buildings, space made up for age, so even though the paint was flaking and the pipes whistled and the floor creaked, each room was huge and airy, with luxurious decorative crown molding and elaborate vintage light fixtures.

Hux and Phasma had helped Kylo load his personal gear into his van, and then ubered over, waving cheerfully at Kylo, Rey, and the two guitarists Hux hadn’t met yet when they left. Kylo and the three women were just finishing unloading everything when Hux and Phasma arrived, and Kylo took his bass in one hand, and Hux’s hand in the other, and dragged him up the stairs.

It wasn’t a large gathering. Hux and Kylo walked through the tiny kitchen, down an impossibly long hallway, and entered a large room with four doors branching off from it, and two more leading to a balcony that faced the street. The lights were dim, the air was smoky, and all the furniture mismatched. Knights of Ren posters were tacked up on all the walls and some unidentifiable rock music was piping through tinny speakers set up around the flatscreen TV. They were playing Street Fighter.

“Hey guys!” Every head in the room turned; someone paused the game. “This is Hux and this is Phasma.” Everyone grinned and waved at them and before Hux could say anything, Kylo started pointing. “That’s Rose and Paige, they play guitar. And you know Rey. And that’s her boyfriend Finn, and his boyfriend, Poe. Jessika-- she lives downstairs.”

Hux followed Kylo’s hand as he pointed and tried to keep track of it all. Rose and Paige were both lounging in an oversized and fraying arm chair. Jessika was holding a black controller and stuffed into the end of the couch, with Poe (holding a red controller) in the middle, and Finn beside him; Rey was sitting in Finn’s lap, leaning against the armrest with one leg thrown over Poe’s knees.

Poe and Finn were both staring at Hux with matching expressions of suspicion, but before he could think much about it, Poe’s face cleared and he said, “Wait, you’re the guy.”

“The guy,” Hux repeated.

“Shut up, Dameron,” Kylo snapped.

“He’s the guy,” Rey said smugly.

“What guy,” Phasma demanded wryly.

Rose answered, smiling so they could all see the dimples in her round cheeks. “The guy everyone at BB’s has been talking about all week.”

Hux looked around at Kylo in alarm and Kylo snapped, “Leave him alone. Jesus. I can’t take you shitheads anywhere.”

“You didn’t--” Paige began, but Kylo cut her off.

“Fuck, fine, this is why I don’t bring anyone home, alright?”

“You all live here?” Phasma interjected, and Hux could have kissed her for the distraction.

“Nah, just me and the Ticos,” Rey answered, motioning to Paige and Rose. “Basically the band, minus Chewie.”

“Who?”

“Our drummer,” Kylo answered, leaning against the wall.

“His name is Chewie?” Phasma asked skeptically.

“It’s what everyone calls him,” Kylo told her. “I’ve known the guy my whole life and I honestly have no idea what his real name is.”

“He probably doesn’t even know at this point,” Rey added wryly before she mimed a drinking motion.

Paige snorted and Rose smirked at Rey when she said, “You think he could still keep rhythm if he was sober?”

“No,” Kylo chortled. “I’d think something was very, very wrong if he was ever sober.” He turned back toward the kitchen as he spoke and then tossed over his shoulder, eyes locking with Hux’s, “You want a beer?”

Hux nodded silently and suddenly felt very awkward when he turned back and found the whole room staring at him. Christ, it was like college all over again, he mused, lifting his chin in defiance.

He was saved when Poe unpaused the video game and Jessika screeched, “Hey! Ass!” after he promptly landed a shoryuken combo.

Poe won the battle, but Jessika won the war and was hooting victoriously when Kylo returned and handed Hux a Lagunitas IPA. He had one for Phasma too, but she declined with a grimace, so he just held them both, sat down on the empty love seat, and then raised his brow at Hux. “You just gonna stand there all night?”

Red faced, Hux tiptoed across the room, and sat down beside him. Phasma sat down on an actual honest-to-god bean bag chair that had been shoved in a corner, and by the time Hux had taken the first sip of his drink, Kylo had a controller in his hands and was thrashing Jessika so soundly, he actually got a perfect in the first round. Hux was watching the screen so intently, he almost didn’t notice when Rey stood and left the room.

Jessika’s controller was passed to Finn, then to Poe, by which point Rey had returned. Hux was so focused on the screen, on watching how Kylo chained his combos, that he didn't notice the thick smoke filling the room until someone said, “Phasma?”

She said, “Um.”

And Hux suddenly realized everyone was looking at him again. “What?” Phasma was staring at him with her brows raised.

Paige was trying to pass Phasma what Hux was shocked to realize was a bong.

“What is he, your mother?” Kylo demanded of her without taking his eyes off the screen. Poe was playing a very successful game of keepaway but wasn’t actually landing any hits.

“Worse,” Phasma said with a smirk. “He’s my boss.”

“What do you do exactly?” Kylo asked suddenly, taking his eyes off the screen for the first time since he’d grabbed the controller.

“I’m in IT,” Hux told him evasively. “And do what you want, Phas, you know I’d get nothing done without you.”

“That’s a lie,” she told him, taking the glass from Paige and bringing it to her lips. “But thanks.”  

She released an impressive cloud of smoke a moment later, Kylo finally beat Poe again, and Phasma held the bong out for Hux to take.

Hux stared at her. She was grinning at him with a truly evil sparkle in her eyes and Hux suddenly felt all the eyes on him like something slimy. It suddenly occurred to him that he’d literally never been in this situation before in his entire life. He’d certain _seen_ bongs and weed before, but no one had ever _offered_ him any.

His voice, when he finally made it work again, was much smaller than usual, and so tight his lips barely moved. “No, thank you.” Was that the proper response? And really, Hux didn’t even know how to work one of those. Well. He did in a strictly theoretical sense. But in practice?

Phasma’s grin inched up and she said loudly, “That’s right, you’ve never smoked before, right?”

Hux narrowed his eyes at her, and Kylo leaned across Hux to take the bong out of her hand.

Hux said very primly, “No.”

He was so busy glaring Phasma down, he was only vaguely aware of Kylo, from the corner of Hux’s eye, as he put his lips to the bong, filled it with milky white smoke, and then inhaled it all.

Hux became acutely aware of the image, however, when Kylo curled his fingers around Hux’s chin and kissed him full on the mouth. At least that’s what Hux thought he was doing. A split second after their lips locked, Kylo was breathing all his smoke into Hux’s lungs and the whole room was in a sudden uproar, with Poe, the Ticos, and Phasma all laughing, while Finn and Jessika made disapproving noises, and Rey hurled a bottle cap at Kylo’s head, shouting, “Aw, Kylo, that’s mean!”

When Hux shoved him away, he was coughing, his throat was burning, and his eyes were streaming. Kylo leaned over again and kissed him once on the cheek, an obnoxiously charming smile on his lips, and when Hux could speak again, he croaked, “I’m going to make you pay for that.”

The laughter continued. Rey snatched the bong from Kylo’s lap, and Kylo said suggestively, “Oh, really? How’re you gonna do that?”

Hux turned his head to Poe, “Give me that controller.”

Kylo’s brows furrowed in an arrogant, challenging sort of expression that Hux met with equal smugness (although he was sure the effect was ruined by the coughing he couldn’t seem to shake.)

Kylo navigated back to the character select screen and Hux said casually, “You main Chun Lee?”

Kylo looked at him out of the corner of his eyes. “Ken.”

“Better pick Ken then.”

Poe whistled. Rey ‘oohed’ loudly. Phasma looked at Hux and said, “You don’t play video games!”

Hux navigated to Vega and started the game.

Hux lost the first match. Kylo grinned at him and muttered something about Hux being all talk. The second match was closer. Poe and Finn leaned forward on the couch and started offering commentary. Hux still lost. He wasn’t as acclimated to the controller as he would have liked.

The third match wasn’t even close. “Don’t get cocky,” Hux quipped as Vega took the round.

Kylo got very quiet and adjusted himself on the couch.

Hux took the fourth match, and the fifth, and Poe and Finn burst into wild cheers when Hux gave Kylo an unrestrained smirk. Phasma was staring at him open mouthed. Jessika screeched, “Straight wrecked, son!”

“Rematch!” Kylo yelped, pointing at the screen. “I was going easy on you.”

Hux snorted and wordlessly started up a new match.

He won three straight rounds.

Kylo said incredulously, “Mother fucker.” When Hux just grinned at him (and really, he was doing _quite_ a lot of grinning, wasn’t he?) Kylo said, “What the _fuck?”_

“I’ll show you my arcade stick sometime,” Hux told him.

“Yeah, he will,” Rey called, making everyone laugh and Jessika high five her over Finn and Poe’s heads.

The controllers were passed. The bong made its way around the room again and this time when it landed in Hux’s lap, he grudgingly allowed Kylo to show him how to use it-- mostly because Kylo put his pretty lips close to Hux’s ear as he explained, and laid his hand across Hux’s to help him control the smoke.

Hux lost track of time. He liked these people in this strange room. Something about the causal nature of it all was thoroughly intoxicating. Hux didn’t really have friends, and the closest he came to parties was wine drenched business meetings with men almost as uptight as he was. He felt outside himself, somehow, like it wasn’t really him sitting on Kylo’s couch, inching into the other man’s space.

Kylo brought him back to the room when he leaned over and said, “Hey. Wanna see my room?” so low into Hux’s ear, Hux thought he might have imagined it. He peered across the room and found Rose asleep in her chair. Paige was nowhere to be found. Jessika was still fiddling with the controller while Poe and Finn looked very chummy with each other. Rey was stretched out over Phasma’s lap in the bean bag chair, giggling and running her hands through Phasma’s short blonde hair and Hux felt his eyes go wide when he spotted them. How had he missed _that?_

“Absolutely.”

Kylo stood smoothly and for a moment, Hux felt caught in his gravitational pull, half trailing after him, half staring up at his huge chest and gorgeous hair and incredible skin.

Kylo grabbed his hand, led him into the room closest to the couch they’d been sitting on, and shut the door.

Whatever tension that had been lingering in Hux’s chest unwound itself. They were alone. Something about that felt incredibly _right._

Kylo flipped his light on and a soft pinkish glow filled the room. Hux was stunned by what he saw. Kylo’s room was tidy, in a strange, cluttered sort of way. Two walls were filled with huge floor to ceiling bookshelves that were all mismatched but overflowing with books that seemed to be arranged, infuriatingly, by color and size. Another wall was home to more stringed instruments than Hux cared to count, some in cases, some hanging on the wall. There was a huge king bed with one thin red blanket and at least ten mismatched pillows in the corner, and finally, a closet and a desk with a wire cage and a computer on it.

“How many instruments do you play?” Hux breathed, settling there first.

Kylo smiled at him, the expression oddly tender and intimate, and said casually, “Most everything with strings, mainly.” He crossed to the wire cage and opened it up as Hux peered curiously over his shoulder. He scooped what looked like birdseed into a little dish, made a chirping noise, and then Hux actually jumped when a goddamn _squirrel_ materialized from a little hammock in the corner. It dashed forward and Kylo pet the top of its little head before he pulled back and closed the cage.

“You have a _squirrel?”_ Hux demanded. “Where the fuck did you get a squirrel?”

“That’s Darth Vader!” Kylo protested. He stepped aside so Hux could see the little creature nibbling at the seeds he’d dropped in the bowl. It was missing one of its front paws. “A cat got her when she was a baby. I saved her,” he said proudly.

“And you named her Darth Vader,” Hux said weakly.

“Of course! What would you have named her?”

Hux shook his head. “God, you are so strange.”

Kylo grinned at him and the expression was so wonderfully enticing, Hux couldn’t help but start speaking again. “You know, I read _Wuthering Heights_ again.”

The smile got a little less amused, became a little warmer. He sounded genuinely surprised when he said, “Really?”

“I did.” Hux shrugged. “I still think Heathcliff is an asshole and Catherine is a spoiled brat. But,” he added, stepping forward thoughtlessly and sliding his fingers under Kylo’s T-shirt so he could lay his  hand on the tattoo on his ribs, “They loved each other. Neither of them had any business being loved, awful as they were, but they still loved each other.”

“Everyone has business being loved,” Kylo told him, taking his hand by the wrist and bringing his lips to Hux’s fingertips. “That’s why I love that book. Even the most terrible people can still fall in love, and have something… greater. You don’t think it’s beautiful?”

“Now I do.”  
It almost stunned him, how gently Kylo kissed him. Hux had been staring at him all night, imaging the ways he would tear the clothes from his back, make him moan again, and writhe and plead-- and now this. This sweet, tender kiss from this strange mountain of a man.

Kylo broke away then, and ran his fingers through Hux’s hair. “I like this,” he told him. “Looks different. Did you get it cut?”

Hux opened his mouth to say something snide, but his head felt light and free and his hands floated up to rub Kylo’s broad shoulders without his permission. “No, Phasma just fixed it.”

“You look like you should be on the cover of a magazine,” Kylo told him.

Hux snorted. “Don’t flatter me, Kylo, I’m not an idiot.”

His brows drew together and Hux watched the silver balls between his eyes sparkle in the soft light. “What? You do.” Hux snorted. “Guys like you don’t usually give me the time of day,” Kylo admitted, the words oddly exposed in the quiet close space between them.

Hux felt his brows draw together. “Guys. Like me.”

“Yeah! You know. Grown up types. Got your shit together types. You probably pay all your bills on time and have a morgage and shit, right?”

“I. Yes?” Hux told him hesitantly.

“Hey, you never finished telling me what you do,” Kylo said suddenly, finally breaking away from Hux and sitting on the edge of his bed. “And don't say you’re in IT.”

“I am though,” Hux told him, brow furrowing.

Kylo giggled at him. “God, you’re cute, you know that?”

“Cute.”

“Yeah. Cute.”

“That’s a new one.”

“Liar.”

“No,” Hux told him, whirling to face the wall with all the instruments because it was suddenly to much to look at Kylo. “I’ve gotten uptight, terrifying, cold,” he ticked off on his fingers, “but never ‘cute.’”

“Fuck whoever you’ve been dating then,” Kylo told him.

But then Hux went very still.

He was staring at the wall. Where Kylo had two framed degrees mounted, half hidden behind an upright bass case and a guitar hanging on the wall.

He had his B.M. and M.M. in Music Performance from the local university-- which Hux knew to have one of the most prestigious music programs on the east coast.

But that wasn’t what took his breath away. It was the name the degrees had been awarded to: Benjamin Lucas Organa-Solo.

“Hux?”

Hux was gaping at Kylo’s wall like a fish. “You’re. _You’re_ Ben Solo.”

“Fuck.”

Hux whirled around and pointed a shaking hand at the degrees. “You’re Benjamin Solo?”

“You’ve heard of me,” Kylo groaned, sounding miserable. “What the fuck, how?”

“I have your album,” Hux told him weakly. He’d had it since he was a teenager.

“I was like thirteen when I recorded that.”

“I know! You were a goddamn prodigy!” Ben Solo had played the cello like a master. Hux had spent countless hours studying to that album. He’d even thought the big-eared, freckled boy grinning a crooked grin in a tuxedo on the cover with a cello between his legs was rather cute. Hux wasn’t about to admit that, however.

“Yeah, well, I grew up,” Kylo said grouchily.

“Do you still play?” Hux asked excitedly. He couldn’t help it-- he could tell Kylo was annoyed, but he still couldn’t seem to turn off the sudden giddy surge charging through his head.

“Course I do,” Kylo admitted. “I love cello. I always will. I just got tired of playing other people’s songs, you know? Plus, the classical scene can be a little uptight and once I started tattooing my _neck_ they got a little… glare-y.”

Hux sank onto the bed beside Kylo and said softly, “Holy shit.” Then he turned his head and his voice was somewhere between shy and sly when he said, “Will you play for me sometime?”

Kylo looked up at him from where he was draped across the bed and said, “I dunno, Red. You’ll have to _persuade_ me.”

Hux felt a smile tug at his lips at the nickname. It wasn’t particularly original-- he’d certainly been called ‘Red’ before. But every time Kylo said it, he felt a thrill dart down his spine, felt a tug in his stomach and a little pulse between his legs. Somehow, Kylo just made the word _sexy._

Hux twisted his fingers in Kylo’s shirt and leaned over for a kiss, but before their lips met, Kylo put his hand on Hux’s chest and pushed him back. “Wait. You _still_ haven’t told me what you do for a living. You keep changing the subject!”  
“You changed it this time,” Hux told him. “I was cute, remember?”  
“Come on, Red. Spill.”

Hux fell back against the bed with a sigh, but he still left his hand tangled in Kylo’s collar. He felt strange, like he couldn’t keep holding his shoulders up, and lazy, like he didn’t actually care.

“I own and operate my own business,” Hux told him. “I design security software.”

Kylo’s brows shot up. “So you’re like, really fucking smart?”

Hux snorted. “Yes.”

Kylo stared at him and grinned, but then something changed in his expression and he said suspiciously, “Wait, what’s your business called?”

“First Order Defense.”

Kylo’s brows wrinkled. And then he laughed. “Holy shit, _I’ve_ heard of _you.”_

“What?” Hux demanded alarmed.

“Yeah! You were in _Downtown’s_ forty under forty article. I have like five copies of that issue cause there’s a write up on the band in the entertainment section. Fuck, I _knew_ you looked familiar.”

Hux stared at Kylo, nonplussed, and didn’t know what to say.

He’d only agreed to do that damn interview because Phasma had insisted it was good publicity-- not that they really needed it. Overall, it had been a very trying experience. The reporter had asked him the most basic questions about First Order, and spent the rest of the interview prodding him about women and his love life until he’d finally snapped, “I’m gay and I’m not sure what that has to do with my program.” The reporter had gotten oddly excited after that and started asking him questions about being gay instead and Hux had almost thrown him out of his office.

When the article came out, Hux had been furious to realize he’d been bumped from number twenty two on the list to number eight and the article opened by naming him a member of the LGBT community as if being gay was part of his business’s accomplishments. It had been paired with a rather intimidating photo of him in a black suit in front of the plate glass windows in his office looking haughty, which Hux hadn’t minded until he realized of all the photos of all the men in the article, his was the one that most closely resembled a modeling photoshoot-- all the other men had been allowed to sit at their desks, pretend to give speeches, work on their computers, pose with their various accolades. And then there had been Hux, with one hand in his pocket and one on his tie, his chin lifted and one hip cocked ever so slightly to the right.

“That was a fiasco,” he said finally.

Kylo raised his brows. “Why?”

“My write up was atrocious,” Hux told him. “And once the reporter found out I’m queer he wouldn’t talk about anything else.”

Kylo snorted. “I’ll have to reread it.”

“Please don’t.”

Kylo chuckled and Hux even smiled himself, eyes drifting to the ceiling. The room did a funny little spin and it struck Hux all of a sudden how incredibly surreal all this was, how oddly he was acting. Hux didn’t go to strange men’s apartments and get _stoned._ He didn’t worry about whether his shoes were too dressy or his hair too severe-- he liked the way he dressed and he’d never second guessed himself before. He didn’t find it at all easy to talk to strangers about… well, anything short of business.

And then there was Kylo. Hux turned his head to look at him, at the way his unkempt hair was falling in front of his face, at the way he was grinning at Hux, at his big, tattooed biceps flexing as he held himself up on the bed.

Hux liked him.

Hux liked him _a lot._

Enough that if he went home and Kylo never called him again he’d actually be upset.

“Will you let me take you out sometime?” Hux asked without thinking. Kylo’s brows knit together. “Somewhere nice.” Hux grinned at him to hide the way his heart was suddenly hammering. “You’ll have to wear a suit. Do you own a suit?”

Kylo rolled his eyes. “I’m an ex-concert cellist, Red, of course I own a suit.” Then he smiled and it was soft, gentle sort of expression. He looked at Hux like that a lot, and it was very odd how tender he could seem when he was all hard lines and metal and ink. “I’d like that.” Then he added with a little wrinkle in his brow and a chuckle that almost, but not quite, didn’t sound nervous, “Assuming you actually want to be seen out in public with me.” He tried to play it off like a joke, but Hux recognized the same tingle of anxiety in Kylo that he'd felt as he tried on a pair of bright red canvas shoes.

Hux wordlessly pulled Kylo on top of him and kissed him, put every dirty little fantasy he'd been having all week long into the breath he pushed into Kylo's lungs. It was a shock when Kylo's tongue brushed his--a shock because as much as he'd imagined it, he'd almost convinced himself it hadn't possibly been as good as all that, that he'd been a little drunk on beer and improbability. But it was as good as he remembered, better even, and he realized with a lazy smile that there was no urgency this time. He could do this as long as he wanted--or as long as Kylo let him.

The little voices in his head and all the tension he usually carried in his neck and jaw and shoulders didn't seem to be there anymore, and Hux absently pictured a very smug Phasma watching him learn to operate a bong from across the room.

Without all that anxiety, it was easier to kiss Kylo exactly how he wanted to, to revel in the incredible, foreign way Kylo kissed him back.

When Kylo finally pulled away, he was perched on Hux's hips, panting, and he hooked his hands in his shirt and tugged it off. Hux's eyes fell immediately to the muscular chest, the pleasantly undefined skin across his belly, and the incredible riot of artwork covering every inch of him.

“I'll get the light,” he said, starting to pull away, but Hux surprised himself when he hooked his hands in Kylo's belt loops and said urgently, “Leave it on.”

Kylo looked down at him, hands falling to Hux's waist and gave him an amused, questioning little smirk.

“You're a work of art. You deserve to be admired.”

Kylo laughed. It was a horrible line and Hux was fairly certain he would have never said it if a certain someone hadn't forced smoke down his throat, but Hux didn't care because it brought a splotchy blush to Kylo's cheeks. Hux lifted his fingers to touch it and only realized in the split second before his fingers connected that that wasn't his typical way with men he'd just met. The motion was too familiar, too tender. Hell, it wasn’t his way with anybody.`

Kylo's cheek was very warm.

He was glad Kylo hadn't tattooed his face (aside from the word “Ren” just in front of his left ear) so that Hux could see all the ways he brought heat to Kylo's cheeks, painted that little patch of naked skin with some color of his own.

When Hux’s eyes fell once more to Kylo's painted chest, Kylo bit his lip and stepped back, hands moving to his tight black jeans. Hux sat up on his elbows, pulse hammering in the fingertips that had laid against Kylo's skin, and watched him slowly shimmy out of his jeans. He was a showman, for all he stood so still on stage, and Hux could tell by the blush in his cheeks and the glimmer in his eyes and the way his white teeth sunk into his pink bottom lip how much he enjoyed being looked at.

Hux swallowed, felt the motion all the way down his throat.

There was some skin on Kylo’s hips and the insides of his thighs that he hadn’t reached with the tattoos yet. His whole right thigh was just an outline, the color only extending to his knee. Hux tried to take in every detail, every swirling pattern, but he couldn’t. Instead, his eyes were drawn to the large pieces-- the skin tearing away from the biomech design extending from his right elbow down over his hand; Gustav Klimt’s _The Kiss_ in outrageous psychedelic greens and blues on his left thigh; what looked like a fiery hellscape on his right calf with a charred man reaching out of it. He was a constellation of contradictions connected by tiny illustrations of flowers and stars and swords and animals and text. Hux wanted to study him like a museum, move from limb to limb like he would walk through lonely wings and worship the artistry he found in each disjointed corner.

Kylo wet his lips. Hux twisted his fingers through the air and with a surprised little huff of laughter, Kylo turned around.

His back took Hux’s breath away. It was the largest piece he had, and it was a perfect recreation of the right panel of Bosch’s _The Garden of Earthly Delights._ Every twisted little fantasy was rendered in perfect, loving detail that extended from the tops of his shoulders, down over the cusps of his perfect pert ass cheeks. The round seat of his ass was more bare skin, which was all the more tantalizing for the dense nightmare of images pressing up against it.  

Hux stood up quickly, tugging his shirt over his head as he did, and reversed their positions with a hand stuck to Kylo’s chest. Kylo took a huge trembling breath as Hux dropped the shirt on the floor, put his denim covered knee on the bed between Kylo’s thighs. Kylo was a towering, muscular man. But here, Hux forced him to look up.

Hux smiled down at him, his head spinning with closeness, and Kylo went so totally silent, Hux realized he was holding his breath. That wouldn’t do at all.

Kylo’s cheek was soft when Hux kissed it. The line of his jaw was harder, more worthy of a wet bite that broke the strange silence Kylo seemed trapped in when he groaned under the pressure and fell back against the bed, only arching up enough to provide Hux easy access to his throat and jaw and collarbones. Hux kissed each one and moved lower, drew a pierced nipple between his lips and sucked out a soft shudder before he rolled a piece of metal between his teeth and made Kylo whimper and clench beneath him.

Hux had never taken so much pleasure in the feel of his lips over skin before. It was thoroughly intoxicating, the map across his flesh. Sometimes Hux could feel the lines of his tattoos, little scars of ink and color. When he found one of these, he tasted it with his tongue traced it to its edges and back again until he was convinced he had it memorized. Shoulders, chest, and arms, the flaccid dip of his belly, all received the same attention, and Hux didn’t realize he was doing anything out of the ordinary until Kylo’s voice, growing all around him, broke on Hux’s name. His nickname. _Red._

Hux sat up, sat back on the edge of the bed and dropped his eyes to that lovely cock and all its glinting piercings, leaving little trails on Kylo’s stomach. “Fuck, Red, _please_ don’t stop, that feels-- no one’s ever--” His voice changed. “Hey, are you alright?”

The room spun. Hux put his palm over his eye and shook his head, but that only made it worse.

“Shit.” Kylo sat up, put his hand at the base of Hux’s spine and said, “Hey, Red. Talk to me, are you alright?”

“I’m fine.” His voice sounded strange to his own ears, like it was coming to him from across the room. “I’m. Dizzy.”

“Shit,” Kylo panted. “You’re toast. Fuck, I’m sorry. I’m shouldn’t have--”

Hux tried to open his eyes and focus on Kylo’s face but his eyes didn’t seem to want to stay still. So instead he leaned forward again, cut off Kylo’s apology with a kiss and tried to bear him back down to the bed.

“Red,” Kylo pushed him away, laughing. “Wait a sec, we don’t have to-- I can get you some water.”

He was thirsty. He was _very_ thirsty.

“After,” he heard himself say, voice thick against Kylo’s lips.

“You sure?” Kylo’s voice was suddenly darker too, and Hux could taste it; how turned on he was. How much he didn’t want to stop.

“This is better,” Hux muttered, pressing Kylo fully back down to the bed and sprawling on top. “See, I’m fine now.”

Kylo started laughing and it turned into a high-pitched moan when Hux dropped a hand and palmed his balls.

How long had he been lavishing Kylo with kisses? All at once, every inch of him pulsed with heat, with need, and all his dizzy spinning coalesced into one bright point of single minded focus. If he stared Kylo in the eyes he could see all the rest of him in his periphery but could still see all the little fires he’d been kindling burning in Kylo’s irises.

He tottered when he slid off the bed to slip out of his jeans, only barely grabbing hold of himself long enough to remember the condoms he’d slid into his back pocket. Everything broke and spun when he looked down to slid one on, and Kylo twisted under him, reaching for his nightstand and a fat, squat bottle of lube.

All the broken spinning stopped again when Hux felt Kylo’s legs curl around his back, when Hux slid lube slicked fingers past a tight curl of muscle and heard Kylo’s voice crack again.

Kylo was still too eager, like he’d been before, and Hux had barely curled his fingers once when Kylo was hissing brokenly into his ear, “Just fuck me, come on, I’ve been waiting for you--”

That drew Hux up short.

He sat back on his heels, one hand snapping to Kylo’s throat and said wetly, “Have you?”

“Every night,” Kylo babbled, trying to draw Hux in closer with his heels on Hux’s spine. “Fuck, Red, every night this week I’ve…” He trailed off, eyes suddenly going a little too sharp on Hux’s.

Hux couldn’t help bending low over him and whispering, “Something in that nightstand remind you of me?”

“No,” came the instant reply. “Not nearly as good.”

He wailed when Hux finally obliged him with a wet, slick slid that made Hux’s eyes roll back in his head. The hand at Kylo’s throat moved to tangle in his hair, and Hux dropped low, leaned in so close his nose slid alongside Kylo’s, just so he could hear every sound, every pant, every gasp under all his full throated moans.

Hux always loved taking men apart. He always loved watching the big ones crumble and cry for him, but this was different. Everything about Kylo was different and Hux realized how incredibly strange that was when he lifted his head so he could watch Kylo come, watch the way his eyes squeezed shut, the way he bit his lip and got so quiet in the split second before his lips went slack and he screamed helplessly, hands curling against Hux’s shoulders, pulling him closer.

Hux realized belatedly he’d wrapped Kylo’s substantial cock with his own fist, was marveling at the slide of uncut skin over metal bars and rings the way he’d marveled at the feel of every scar against his tongue.

Kylo went limp beneath him, weak, whimpering moans unspooling from his lips as Hux rode him to his own climax.

He literally saw stars, a spray of white and gold behind his eyes as he coasted on a strange, dizzying wave of skin tingling bliss that left his mind so empty he was actually surprised to find the light still on when he opened his eyes.

He looked down and found Kylo grinning up at him, a lazy, sex drunk grin that Hux had to struggle not to catch. He collapsed across Kylo’s chest with a satisfied little moan that turned into a hiss when his head gave an almighty pulse and he pressed his hand to his eyes again.

“Shit,” Kylo slurred. “Let me get you some water.”

Hux rolled away from him, one hand on the condom, and the other pressed to his eye sockets. “Ow.”

“Headache?”

“Yes.”

“You wanna smoke again?”

“Will that help?”

Kylo laughed. “Yeah. We could also fuck again.”

“That will definitely help,” Hux agreed with a very uncharacteristic smile.

Kylo chuckled, planted a kiss on the corner of Hux’s mouth, and said, “Be right back. There’s a bathroom right there if you need it.”

He slipped naked from the room and Hux was only liminally curious if he often walked around the apartment he shared with three women totally nude.

After the initial pulse, Hux’s new found headache slacked off enough for him to stagger to his feet to step into the bathroom and dispose of the condom and wash the lube off his hands and his dick.

When he stepped back out into the room, his phone was dinging.

“Shit.” Phasma.

_Either you really enjoyed yourself or you can fake it better than a porn star._

Hux stared at the text in silence as Kylo opened the door and slipped back into the warm quiet of the room, holding a tall glass of ice water. Hux accepted it and said, “Where’s Phasma?”

Kylo shrugged. “I dunno, but she was looking pretty chummy with Rey. My bet is Finn went home with Poe and Rey shacked up with your girl.”

Hux looked back down at his phone and sipped the water before typing, _That wasn’t me._

Kylo threw himself down on the bed and reached under his nightstand. When he emerged, he was holding a large glass pipe and a baggie.

_Bull shit. Rey says she's never heard him before and they've lived together for years._

Smirking, Hux set the phone down.

“What?”

Hux shook his head. “Nothing.”

“Feeling any better?”

Hux shrugged. Aside from the strange headache, he felt. Very good. Very, very, very good. He felt a lazy grin curl his lips and realized he was staring at Kylo through squinted eyes.

Kylo held out his pipe. Hux regarded it.  

“Hit this bowl,” Kylo said coyly, “And then I’ll show you what else I can do with my tongue.” He gave Hux a very lopsided grin and put his free hand on Hux’s knee. “Deal?”

Hux didn’t need more motivation than that. With a sly smirk of his own, he accepted the bowl.

“Deal.”

**Author's Note:**

> YDNSM is an amazing artist who I want to brainstorm with always and forever and who can be blamed for Kylo's (imo scorchingly hot) back tattoo (I mean, and his eyes and his tongue and other stuff besides. But the back just made its first appearance.)  
> Many thanks to Splintered_Star for the ridiculous cracky conversation that spawned Darth Vader the squirrel. I love her. So does Kylo.  
> And Ajax as always being the most incredible beta/friend/encouragement screamer who ever did live. 
> 
> Here's my [tumblr](https://ellabesmirched.tumblr.com/) I love you thank you for liking Inked I hope this follow up is satisfying please enjoyyyyyy!


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